In Stars And Time

A time loop built as a character study

In Stars And Time opens like a classic turn-based RPG: a small adventuring party approaches the climactic fight against a tyrant king. Then the fight ends, and the world resets, and only Siffrin — the party's dagger-wielding, self-deprecating protagonist — remembers. What follows is less a puzzle-box time-loop story in the Groundhog Day tradition than a slow character study, using the loop mechanically to put the player inside Siffrin's fraying, increasingly exhausted headspace as the same days repeat. Reviewers are close to unanimous that the writing is the game's real achievement: "this game has haunted my thoughts for months," reads one; "I've never cried while playing a video game before. This game had me sobbing," reads another; several describe recognising themselves specifically in Siffrin's anxiety and self-image struggles in a way they say few games manage. That intensity of response — not just "I liked it" but "it changed how I think about myself" — recurs often enough across the review sample to be a real, distinguishing quality rather than review-hype.

The cast around Siffrin draws similar praise: each companion is written with enough interiority that reviewers describe them as feeling like real people rather than quest-givers, and the game's handling of queer identity and mental health themes is repeatedly singled out as thoughtful rather than performative — several reviewers who say they're normally wary of games leaning on representation as a selling point specifically credit this one with earning it. The pixel art and character portraits get consistent, low-key praise across nearly every review regardless of overall verdict, giving the whole thing a warm, expressive visual identity that suits the writing's mix of humour and genuine sadness.

The complaint that comes from the target audience, not around it

What makes In Stars And Time's small negative-review minority worth real attention, rather than the usual background noise of any 97%-positive game, is who's writing them. This isn't a case of the wrong audience wandering in — a striking number of the negative reviews sampled for this piece open by establishing that the reviewer is exactly who the game is for. "I like time loops, turn-based RPGs, queer rep, characterful writing, emotional stories, and cute art. In Stars and Time has all these things — and it's a shame there's no neutral review option," reads one. "Despite being part of the intended audience... I just can't recommend it," reads another. What they consistently describe is the same specific problem: the game deliberately makes you re-walk the same rooms, re-trigger the same conversations and re-fight familiar enemies dozens of times as Siffrin's loops accumulate, and it does this as an intentional design choice meant to put the player inside the character's exhaustion. Several reviewers quote the game's own text defending this directly — "it's the point" — and respond that knowing the tedium is deliberate doesn't make it less tedious to sit through as an interactive experience rather than read about. "The time loop mechanic means you are going to be exploring the same town and dungeon again... and again... and again. It's incredibly [frustrating]," reads one representative complaint; another, more bluntly: "this game is offensively boring, and I just read that the dev made it intentionally so. Well done, I guess."

This is a genuinely different kind of criticism than "not my genre," and it's worth taking at face value: a design choice can be thematically justified and still not work as an experience for a meaningful share of players, including ones who love everything else about the game. Combat comes in for a related but separate complaint — several reviewers, including many positive ones, describe the turn-based battles as simple enough to become a rote formality well before the credits, with the mechanical depth never quite catching up to how much of the runtime is spent in it.

The ending, discussed carefully

Without spoiling specifics — this is a story built around discovery, and even critical reviewers are careful about that — a distinct cluster of reviews single out the game's final act as its weakest, disappointing after the earlier acts' buildup. Complaints center on plot threads some reviewers feel go unresolved and an ending several describe as narratively unsatisfying relative to the mysteries established earlier, with at least one reviewer noting the developer has publicly said they're done answering fan questions about it. This isn't the majority view — most reviewers, including several who acknowledge rough patches elsewhere, describe the ending as landing the emotional weight the rest of the game built toward — but it's frequent enough, and specific enough, to flag for anyone going in on the strength of the game's reputation for its writing.

Verdict

In Stars And Time earns its place among the best-reviewed RPGs of 2023 through genuinely exceptional writing, a cast reviewers describe with real affection months later, and a structural use of its time-loop premise that few other games attempt with this much care. It's held back from a perfect score by a real, well-documented tension at its core: the same repetition that makes the narrative work is, for a meaningful and often self-aware slice of its own target audience, simply not enjoyable to sit through as a game. If the premise and the writing style appeal, that's worth knowing going in rather than discovering forty hours deep — but for the large majority of players this clearly reaches, it's a rare, memorable piece of work.